Her Man Friday(17)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Enough was enough, Leo thought. Not even a mousy, little bookkeeper with a name like Leonard Freiberger would put up with this much crap. Unable to help himself, he snapped, "Hey, tell her yourself, Lolita. I’m busy."

"Yes, do tell me yourself," a third voice piped up.

Leo snapped his attention to the door, where Lily Rigby stood, her posture, if possible, even more menacing than young Chloe’s. Her outfit today was as borderline professional as it had been the day before, her charcoal-colored skirt a little too fitted, topped by a berry-colored sweater set that was a little too clingy. Dressed as she was, with her hair wound up the back of her head again, she reminded Leo all too uncomfortably of Audrey Hepburn, for whom he had always harbored a major, major lustfest.

Tiny as she was—nearly a foot shorter than he, and certainly a good eighty or ninety pounds lighter—Miss Rigby was clearly a force to be reckoned with, something that Chloe seemed to realize immediately. Because as mouthy and militant as the girl had been to Leo, at the arrival of Schuyler Kimball’s secretary, her posture became almost meek. Which was interesting, considering the fact that, even at fourteen, she, too, was taller than and outweighed Miss Rigby by a significant amount.

"Uh, hi, Lily," she said. But she dropped her gaze to the floor and didn’t turn around.

Miss Rigby considered the girl in silence, seemingly oblivious to Leo, whom she had yet to acknowledge. She strode slowly and purposefully into the room, her attention focused intently on the young hooligan, her gaze sweeping up and down the girl’s body with unmistakable disapproval.

"Don’t you ‘Hi, Lily’ me, young lady. Just what do you think you’re doing dressed like that?"

Chloe glanced down at her get-up, then back up at Miss Rigby, injecting a confidence into her posture that was dubious at best. "Me and Lauren are up, that’s all," she said. "Not that it’s any of your business."

Miss Rigby arched her eyebrows incredulously, her mouth dropping open at the slight. "I beg your pardon," she said in a clipped voice. "Don’t you dare speak to me that way."

"Um, sorry," Chloe muttered, dropping her gaze again. And strangely, she did seem to be genuinely apologetic.

"You are not up today," the secretary answered imperiously.

God, Leo loved that tone of voice from a woman. It was just so cool, so commanding, so controlled. So hot. It made a man itch to say—or do—something that would shatter her self-control. Involuntarily, he reached up to loosen the tie at his throat, then remembered that he’d already done that earlier. So he inhaled as deeply and imperceptibly as possible to steady his pulse, releasing the breath on a slow, silent, not quite steady sigh.

"You are not up this week, for that matter," Miss Rigby continued in the same tone, still addressing Chloe, but sending Leo’s pulse rate into triple digits. "You’ll be lucky if you are up for the rest of this year after that little stunt you pulled over the weekend. And as far as Lauren is concerned… You know how I feel about that girl. She is not a good influence."

Oh, and God forbid someone who was as pure and untainted as Chloe obviously was should fall in with the wrong crowd, Leo thought. But he said nothing, only watched the by-play, impressed by Miss Rigby’s success with the girl.

"In your room," she commanded. "Now."

"But, Lily," Chloe whined.

Miss Rigby steeled herself for battle, and through gritted teeth, stated without so much as a hint of doubt, "Don’t you front me, girl dude. I know the real. Your stilo today is off."

Whoa, Leo thought, even more impressed. Miss Rigby appeared to be fluent in Teenspeak. How very extraordinary.

"You are so harsh," Chloe muttered.

"Go to your room, change your clothes and wash your face," the secretary told her, reverting back to standard English usage. Her voice softened some, however, as she added, "And get rid of the hardware. Schuyler called and said he’s coming home tonight, and you know how he feels about all that."

"Oh, epic," Chloe grumbled. "Like it matters what he thinks."

But she reached for the hoop in her nose and deftly removed it, an action that quite frankly made Leo’s flesh crawl. He glanced away when he saw her go for the one in her eyebrow. But not before a shudder of distaste wound through him.

"Now go upstairs and change out of that outfit," he heard Miss Rigby say again. "Where did it come from, anyway? I thought we gave all of your mother’s things to charity."

To charity? Leo echoed to himself. What self-respecting charitable organization would take such things? Unplanned Parenthood, maybe, or Promiscuity International, but that was all he could think of.

And then it occurred to him that if they’d given all of her mother’s things to charity, then it could only be because Chloe no longer had a mother who needed things. For the first time, it occurred to Leo that maybe, just maybe, all this piercing behavior—both verbal and physical—might be the result of a kid who was lost in more ways than a kid should be. When he glanced at the pair again, Chloe had turned around, so her back was to him and she was facing Miss Rigby.

"I just wanted to keep a few of her things, all right?" she said with what was obviously only a half-hearted effort to recapture some of her earlier antagonism. "So sue my ass, why don’t you." But there was absolutely no venom in her voice now.

Miss Rigby’s expression eased up some then, and her voice gentled when she told the girl, "just go upstairs and change, all right? Schuyler will be home in time for dinner, so try to find something appropriate to wear."

Without another word, and with a docility Leo wouldn’t have guessed she could manage, Chloe left the room. Her exit was anticlimactic, almost disappointing, really. Somehow, there should have been discordant music and pyrotechnics and the rumble of faraway thunder. Certainly, at the very least, there should have been a puff of smoke and a lingering smell of sulfur. But all that was left in the girl’s wake was an awkward silence and unsatisfied speculation.

Lily Rigby, too, remained behind, but her attention was focused on some point on the wall behind Leo. In any case, she didn’t look at him square on, and fidgeted almost imperceptibly, as if it were she, and not Chloe, who had just behaved abominably.

"Chloe has, um, well, she’s been having trouble at school lately," Miss Rigby announced lamely, as if that explained everything.

Oh, now there was a news flash, Leo thought. "Has she?" he replied blandly, thinking that he’d heard this conversation a dozen times on "Leave It to Beaver" reruns, but he couldn’t recall a single episode where the Beave had been called to the mat for body piercing or red vinyl, platform thigh boots.